November 27, 2018: Goodbye Daily Kos, Sin of 'Bothsiderism', Ideological Straight-jacket

I made the mistake on “Daily Kos”, the internet's self-described greatest liberal political blog, of posting my comments earlier this month about what the elites don't understand about nationalism. I had evidently violated the sensibilities of several subscribers by coming to the defense of the nation-state, and of the editors for rightly pointing out that the Democrats share a measure of guilt for betraying the middle class.  Accordingly, I was taken to task for failure to recognize the evident evils of nationalism by several readers but, more tellingly, banned for two weeks from the site accused by the editors of being guilty of “bothsiderism”. After waiting two weeks, during which I was unable to respond to a storm of criticism I was finally able to post this response:

“The reaction to my last post is most disappointing.  Evidently,  I had wrongly assumed that references to Caesar Disgustus’ misuse of nationalism and the hail of criticism that it has brought down upon his head would have dismissed the critique that I had not given sufficient notice of the evils of nationalism in the twentieth century.  My error. 

However, my central point went entirely unheard.  That is, if one declares war upon the nation-state by stripping it of it’s police powers then what entity will regulate the global economic markets?  Given that roughly half of the world’s 50 largest economies are not nation-states but corporations this is problematic, and if it is left to them to fill the void, I am sure that even the most rabid advocate of ‘free trade’ would soon see the error.  Secondly, and most importantly, the question still stands: what is then left for our elected representatives to then decide?   This is hardly a conservative position, it is one underscored by Naiomi Kline in her treatment of how the international community addressed the end of Apartheid in South Africa, in effect, stripping the new government of the power to decide questions of wealth distribution.  This is similar to what we imposed upon Iraq in the aftermath of war—that is, putting in their constitution the terms forbidding the nationalization of the oil fields.  Corporations are notoriously anti-democratic, and the TPP and other treaties fostered by both Democratic and Republican administrations have placed increasing power into the hands of not only corporate America but the international cartels.  

Further, to underscore the point, not only did Carter begin deregulation but it was under Carter that, among other things, ceilings on interest rates charged for consumer loans and credit cards were effectively eliminated.  Yes, the steps were necessary because of the hyperinflation of the late ’70s but there were no sunset provisions to the changes and neither party has made an attempt to remedy the situation since.  The interest rates currently charged on credit cards would have earlier brought a prosecution.

I do not need to be lectured about the virtuous as opposed to the vicious cycle.  Robert Reich would be the first to point to the dangers I’ve highlighted here and admit that both parties have walked away from the middle class. 

Lastly, it is disheartening to be accused of “bothsiderism”, as if there are only two sides to any issue in the first place.  Any major issue has more than one side, and every side has some measure of legitimacy.  I evidently made the mistake of venturing beyond boilerplate by calling in this liberal Democratic forum that the Democracy and Liberalism recognize the plight and come to the defense once again of the middle classes they created.  My mistake.  I mistook the ramparts for the forum. “

Lastly, to a wag calling himself, appropriately, 'empty vessel', who accused me of having willful blinders by failing to genuflect before the internationalists by paying due attention to the crimes of nations, I responded accordingly:

“I am speaking here of the elites of both parties walking away from the middle class by sacrificing the national economic interests in the name of an ideological imperative—namely classical liberalism which both sides, in the end, adhere to.  Failure to recognize and compensate for the dislocations of the ‘new world order’, puts everything gained at risk.  

It was Tip O’Neil, as House Speaker under Reagan who decided to challenge Republicans on social issues rather than economic ones allowing the conservatives to savage the entire structure of progressive taxation.  The results were wholly predictable and by the decade’s end conservative writer Kevin Phillips—author of Nixon’s Southern Strategy—was writing books detailing the effects of the changes in the tax code on the middle class and excoriating Reagan for the damage done.  What is lost in this is that the gains by minorities, and those left behind, are put at risk in the resulting backlash.  

It is worth noting that the revolt transcends the entire domestic political spectrum from Bernie to Donald and that the money wasn’t about to back tRUMP until the revolt on the ‘left’ occurred.  The battle in 2016 was over who would lead the populist revolt and the Dems, in an act of inspired political stupidity, surrendered the field to the forces of darkness. 

What I’m saying here is that ignoring economics is putting all our advances and maybe all our freedoms at risk.  Without a large, pervasive and controlling middle class, we have no republic. It’s an idea as old as Aristotle.  Waging war on the nation-state in the absence of a realistic alternative creates not only political instability but quickly leads—it should by now be obvious—to a ‘race to the bottom’ as labor is forced to compete with the rest of the world. 

The problem isn’t the state, it is that the state, in the instance of the United States,  is increasingly in service of an exploitive ideological imperative which threatens its republican institutions.  

It is worth remembering that the Greeks fashioned democracy as a political means of reigning in on the oligarchs which were then in control of the polity.  The Greeks understood that maldistribution of wealth was the cause behind the tyranny and that to remedy it required a redistribution thereof.  A greater liberty, relatively speaking, emerged.  To put it another way, when a society becomes an oligarchy, the money will buy power (currently the case here) and, failing that remedy will seize it using the military.   This is what characterizes a banana republic and has undermined the development of representative governments in Latin America and throughout the world.  It also leads to a rather pronounced tyranny. 

One cannot speak of political freedom in the absence of the economic dynamics within any society.  Jefferson understood this as did Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Adams and the Lee’s of Virginia.  The issue I’m addressing is to this central point.  Both parties have ignored and, indeed, have waged war on the middle class.  This not only creates economic hardship but threatens the very foundation of the republic.  

So this is how the fuck, in your terms, I raise the subject.  I am not ignorant.  I know well the history of humanity.  My point is that like any human invention, be it technical, political or merely social, the state is a neutral proposition which can be used for good or ill.  The founders were well aware of this.  Madison argued in the Federalist Papers that failure to form a union would, in modern terminology, quickly lead to the balkanization of North America with thirteen republics, thirteen armies, thirteen foreign policies quickly leading to European intrigue and a quick end to the experiment.  Washington’s Farewell Address, was about such concerns because the European powers were still at our back door—Spain in Florida, France in the Mississippi River basin, the English in Canada.  Failure to establish a viable political expression (nation-state) and maintain its frontiers would quickly lead to its demise.  

Finally, Jefferson’s point that whatever human rights one chooses to postulate cannot be defended outside of the state: “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted...” reads the Declaration of Independence”.  This is not an argument for anarchy.  This is an argument for national identity, the recognition of which both at home and abroad is necessary for not only the establishment but the protection of these rights. 

So talk to me again about willful blinders.” 

This will end my relationship with Daily Kos, for I have no interest in discussing public policy within a straight-jacket of ideological imperative. I have no interest in singing hymns.

November 26, 2018: Boston Tea Party, Anti-Trust, Birth To Revolution

“The Boston Tea Party was not about taxes; it was about monopoly.”

                                     -----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

It transpires that there is a good reason we in the United States are bone ignorant about the degree to which our economy is becoming monopolized. Around 1981, the Federal Trade Commission stopped collecting data on the concentration of various industries. (1)

David Leonhardt, writing in The New York Times, points out that there has always been a strong strain of anti-monopoly sentiment coursing throughout American History. Indeed, as he rightly points out, the Boston Tea Party, a fabled event in our collective consciousness, was a revolt not against taxes but against the newly granted monopoly authorized by Parliament to the East India Tea Company. That the revolt has been presented by our schoolmasters as a tax revolt is a transparent besmirching of the historical record by those who rightly fear a populist revolt against entrenched privilege.

“America was born as a 'nation of farmers and small-town entrepreneurs', writes Leonhardt, citing the historian Richard Hofstadter who described Americans as "'anti-authoritarian, egalitarian and competitive.' Hostility to corporate bigness animated Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt, as well as the labor movement, Granger movement, progressive movement and more” (2)

It is from the well of this deep American tradition that reformers have gathered and organized to employ government to reign in on the abuses of the marketplace and the oligarchies it inevitably produces.

The question has been asked in these columns and elsewhere: why haven't we adequately addressed the current obscenity wherein a handful of Americans have as much personal wealth as half the country? The answer is that it isn't that we aren't aware of it, it is that we have been stripped of our ability—much as many state governments are now being stripped of the ability to measure and report on environmental damage—to measure and report on it. This leaves the critics with the ability to call attention to the problem, but only vaguely.

When Obama was elected, the Justice Department announced that it was about to further monitor the number of hate crimes committed annually. The Rescumlickans cried foul and squashed the effort. The slack was taken up by the Southern Poverty Law Center which now collects such data, and it is now the principle source of information, not the Department of Justice, to which one turns in order to understand the seriousness and the extent of the problem.

As with the Southern Poverty Law Center on hate crimes, an organization called the Open Markets Institute has begun gathering data on the level of the monopolization of the American economy. Citing mergers, and network effects wherein one is basically forced to use a service—think Microsoft or Facebook—the institute has produced a graph which, according to Leonhardt, if anything understates the problem.

The chart doesn't cover the entire economy, it is a preliminary report covering 25 industries. The markets of all but four have, in the last 11-16 years, have become decidedly more concentrated. For instance two companies which controlled in the early 2000's roughly 42% of the Home Improvement market, controls 80 percent of that market today. In shipbuilding the control of the two largest companies went from about 23% up to around 61%; the two largest companies dominating the Private Prison market jumped from 19-53%. And so it goes.

Previously, in our history, we would have long since seen a vigorous anti-trust action taken by the Federal Government enforcing laws that have been on the books since the first Gilded Age, laws that were passed in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century

Previously, this has not been a partisan issue as both parties, and several third parties, have rallied to the cause. The Republicans passed the original anti-trust laws and enforced them under T.R. The Democrats immediately picked up the 'big stick' and enforced the law with greater vigor under Wilson a century ago. The law was enforced throughout most of the twentieth century, with even Nixon completing a successful prosecution of AT&T begun under the Johnson Administration. Then came the actor from California enabled by a Democratic Congress that would not confront the Republicans on economic issues.

Today it is not a partisan issue either as both parties, Democratic and Republican blithely ignore the law as capital continues, unimpeded, to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands.

As noted earlier in these columns, this constitutes a threat for such concentrations kill not only the entrepreneurial spirit but the very republic that depends upon this spirit to ensure a certain egalitarian distribution of wealth and opportunity. In its absence, one is presented with an oligopoly—wealth concentrated in few hands—with controls the polity much as they control the markets from which they spring. This is a principle as old as Aristotle who was, in a word, present at the creation of Democracy. It is why the Athenians formed a Democracy in the first place. It is, therefore, not only right and just to discuss the redistribution of wealth but to do so as a democratic principle in defense of the Republic. To oppose redistribution is, therefore, not only undemocratic and a threat to the republic, it is Un-American.

If you are in doubt, consult the patriots who converged in Boston Harbor and set spark to revolution; a revolution that, in turn, gave birth to a republic.

___________________

1. See Leonhardt, David. “The Monopolization of America” The New York Times. Monday, November 26, 2018. Page A23.
2. Ibid.

November 25, 2018:Emperor's New Clothes

The following was posted today by a friend of mine on Facebook.  Hans Christian Andersen tellingly described our current emperor in waiting, our very own Caesar Disgustus and the sycophants who enable him.

Tony Diviggiano Messages in "The Emperor's New Clothes"
1. The Emperor's vanity allows the two con men to manipulate him. They flatter him in order to deceive him into parting with his money.

The message is that vanity can lead one to make the worst of decisions and, specifically, the worst of purchases. Con artists play on people's vanity. And it's also how advertisers persuade consumers to spend money on expensive luxury items, whose beauty may be illusory.

2. The Emperor's pride prevents him from admitting that he cannot see the clothes. Such an admission would make him seem stupid, if the weavers are to be believed. He ends up deceiving himself, because his pride matters more to him than the truth of his own eyes.

The message is that pride comes before a fall. The more pride you have, the more difficult it is to admit your fallibility, and the more likely you are to allow that fallibility to influence your judgment in a bad way.

3. The Emperor's self-importance is boosted by having a whole bunch of obsequious "yes men" around him. None of these "yes men" is prepared to question his judgment and none of them is prepared to say or do anything which might damage their standing in their ruler's eyes.

The message is that, whether it be an emperor, a president, or a managing director, gathering "yes men" around a leader is a devastating prospect. If the followers of a leader are unwilling or unable to tell him the truth and stand up to him, then his detachment from reality grows and the leader's self-belief will soar to levels of conceited self-deception. If no one tells him that he is sometimes wrong, then he will believe he is always right.

4. The folly of accepting "facts" without question, results in the truth being ignored. The Emperor and courtiers believe what the weavers tell them, and the crowd believes what their leader tells them (in spite of a total lack of hard evidence). The Emperor, the courtiers, and the crowd, one after the other, all assume that the existence of the clothes is beyond doubt.

The message is that we should be critical and objective when examining "facts." Too many "facts" which we hear are, in reality, merely beliefs and opinions (or even lies, as is the case of this story). The evidence needs to be rigorously examined. Hard evidence should be what forms the basis of our "facts," or "truth," even if it results in someone arriving at a conclusion which is not universally popular or politically correct.

5. The folly of seeing beauty where no beauty exists is the direct result of collective, undue, respect for supposed experts. The fake weavers, who are enthused over their "wonderful" cloth, and the court officials who praise the invisible clothes, are no experts, yet their authenticity goes unchallenged.

The message is that we, far too often, believe that something must be good because an "expert" tells us it is. The best examples may be in the fields of popular culture, fashion and modern art, where beauty can be dressed up with "image." In the case of popular culture and fashion, it should be clear that real talent is sometimes lacking. If either was rooted in real talent, then neither would have trouble surviving changing times. Fashion, almost by definition, is transient.True talent and beauty will be recognised forever. In the case of modern art, works which require little imagination in their conception and no talent in their creation frequently sell for $1000s. The price is artificially hyped-up with pretentious pseudo-intellectual babble (in much the same way as the clothes in the story are hyped by the "expert" weavers).

6. The folly of behaving like sheep leads to the crowd living a collective lie. Even though everyone can see that the clothes do not exist, no one in the crowd is willing to stand up for the truth. It's so much easier for everyone to just go with the consensus and conform, rather than to think for themselves.

The message is that the instinct to conform and agree with the majority too often outweighs the courage to say what one actually believes. However, history has shown that the majority is not always right. If people in the crowd refuse to stand up for the truth, in the presence of a falsehood, then they will descend into a sham-society. The worst excesses of dictators have not come about when they have been forced to brutally defend themselves against a courageous opposition. The worst excesses have come when the dictator has been free to live his lies and escalate them because the majority, both in the inner circles of government (the "courtiers") and in the general public (the "crowd" lining the streets), have failed to speak out due to self-interest or fear. One need only to think about the rise of Nazi Germany, and its culmination in the holocaust, to see how true this is.

7. The child who speaks out, when no one else dares to, is at first exposed to ridicule and scorn. But eventually, the truth wins when the crowd recognises the lie which they've been a party to.

The message is that free thinking individuality and freedom from social conventions can allow the truth to emerge, even if no one else is initially prepared to admit it. This remains true to this day. The innocence of the child is like the man who can see an injustice in society to which others are blind to. The child reminds us that all of us should have the confidence to speak out. If we are later proven to be wrong, then at least we will have shown guts. But if we are right, then people will gradually appreciate the truth, and society will change for the better.

8. Even when the crowd is laughing at him, the Emperor continues his parade. To turn back would be to admit that he cannot see the clothes (which would label him as "stupid," according to the weavers) or that he realises he has been fooled by the weavers (in which case he is gullible as well as stupid). Instead, he carries on, blindly pretending that everyone else is wrong and he is right—the most stupid response of all.

The message is that one's folly is compounded when one continues the same behaviors. Rather than admit to a mistake, too many people will carry on blindly. But, as their folly is compounded, they will not be able to withdraw gracefully and humbly. Many tragedies, including wars, have occurred as the result of an insecure leader refusing to admit his ignorance.

Conclusions
If one looks behind the very simple language in the telling of this fairytale, one finds a story all about the failings of human beings—failings which have caused so much grief, hardship and sadness in the world. We can recognise the vain, proud Emperor, unsuited for the job of higher office, the pandering and obsequious henchmen, who offer uncritical support, and the crowd, who fail to recognise the truth, preferring that lies be allowed to flourish. All of these characters still exist in our current societies. We recognise them, but we do not necessarily apply the lessons that they learn to our own lives. Undoubtedly, there are lessons in "The Emperor's New Clothes" which have not been learned by all. These are the lessons, for both children and adults, that make "The Emperor's New Clothes" the most intelligent of all fairytales.

Thanks Tony, well done. 

November 19, 2018: Jaws of Victory, Referendum On Disgustus, Fun House Mirror

As the final election returns filter in, the staggering defeat delivered to our Caesar Disgustus takes shape. It shouldn't have gone this way, for surely Disgustus, aping a well-worn Democratic tendency, has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

As the country approached election night, fully 68 per cent of those questioned told pollsters that they were satisfied with the economy. Indeed, unemployment, however measured, was near an all time low with some news agencies reporting that for the first time in decades median household income was inching up. But only 38 per cent said that the country was moving in the right direction.

This startling disconnect can be laid at the feet of our very own Caesar Disgustus. His daily tantrums, his infantile responses, his breathtaking ignorance, his staggering incompetence, the depth of his corruption and his transparent mendacity manifests daily into a relentless assault upon our institutions, our beliefs, and our national honor.

Accordingly, the people have administered a well deserved flogging.

As of this writing, the Democratic Party is poised to gain between 36 and 40 seats in the House of Representatives, more than enough to gain control of the body. Gone are the days of a lick-spittle Rescumlickan house failing in its constitutional obligations to investigate, advise, and oversee the executive. When the new year comes, Disgustus will be presented with real hearings, with witnesses compelled to testify under oath and before the nation. No more closed door hearing, no more witnesses not required to testify under oath, no more cover-ups, obfuscations, or delay.

On the Senate side, the Blue Wave was not apparent, because the Democrats were defending 26 seats, the Rescumlickans only 9, with many Democratic senators representing deep red territory. Going into the election, it was questionable if the Democrats could hold the seats held by a most uninspiring lot—Donelly of Indiana, McCaskill of Missouri, Nelson of Florida, Heitcamp of North Dakota—all representing states that Disgustus had carried easily in 2016. Of those most at risk, only Manchin of West Virginia held on.

But the Democrats turned a couple of Rescumlickan seats, most notably in Nevada and Arizona. In an act of inspired political stupidity, our Disgustus determined that Jeff Flake—who while voting with the White House more often than any other member of the Senate had, nevertheless, voiced tepid criticism—was not sufficiently loyal to our aspiring Caesar. Therefore, determining that he must go, Disgustus went about trashing the Senator, making it clear that in all probability he would be defeated in the upcoming primary. Flake chose to not stand for re-election.

Accordingly, the good people of Arizona, faced with a choice between a Democrat and another Disgustus wannabe, opted for the Democrat. Here we have the Democracy claiming a seat once held by Barry Goldwater.

It gets more interesting: Kansas—KANSAS--elected a Democratic governor and member of the House. 360 of the more than thousand state legislative seats lost during the Obama years have been reclaimed, boding well for upcoming reapportionment after the 2020 census. The Democrats also claimed a number of governors and other state-wide offices. As it stands, with Mississippi still to conduct a run-off election, the Scum have gained only 2 seats in the Senate. Not the outcome the nation deserves but not the victory that Disgustus has claimed.

Nevertheless it was an ugly affair. The scum claimed victory in Georgia after the Secetary of State Brian Kemp, overseeing his own election, had closed 214 polling places, put 60,000 absentee ballots on hold, and provided voting machines without electrical hookup, all in largely minority and Democratic precincts. Reports circulated of people being pulled from a bus on their way to vote, of long lines with some voters having to stand in line over three hours to vote, and many showing up only to find that they documents didn't precisely match or that they had been purged from the voting lists.

It has been noted in these columns that Disgustus regularly betrays a marked tendency to project on to others his own shortcomings or crimes. And, indeed, the Rescumlickan Party, aping it's leader, is doing the same thing.

As votes were being recounted in Florid and Georgia, Kemp of Georgia, Rubio and Scott in Florida joined the chorus declaring that the Democrats were, by insisting on the count of every vote, somehow “stealing” the election. No matter that the final recount gave them the victory. Here we had our Caesar Disgustus and his minions laying down the groundwork for challenging the legitimacy of any unfavorable outcome....no doubt a dry-run for 2020.

The tragedy here is that there was indeed an attempt to steal an election. Indeed, elections were stolen and Georgia is a textbook case in point. But the scum win both ways...by challenging every defeat with claims of voter fraud and by suppressing voter turnout, they elicit on the one hand illegitimate claims that elections are being stolen from them, but generate legitimate claims by the opposition. This erodes our fundamental electoral system from both sides as each side—one illegitimate and one with cause—cries foul.

This is, of course, a dry-run leading to the much bigger contest two years from now as rumblings of illegitimacy course through the canyons of our politics. When the time comes, Disgustus will declare that his 'rightful' place will have been stolen, laying the foundation for turmoil if not insurrection.

Disgustus, of course, learns nothing. He simply cannot be taught; and the thrashing administered on 6 November, cannot—of course—be a rejection of tRUMP. His ego simply cannot have it. Therefore, we see him in the East Room, calling out and attempting to shame all those members of congress who didn't show him enough love and therefore—by his reckoning, lost. He said before the election that it was all about him. After the election it is still all about him. But not in the way apparent to the rest of the universe. It must take a lot of energy to twist reality into the shape reflected in a fun-house mirror.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison

November 15, 2018: Message In A Bottle, Desperate Times, Bridge the Divide

This afternoon I posted this message on Mitt Romney's Facebook page.

Mitt, I respect what you did to save the Olympics and the fight for health care as governor of Massachusetts. You have a record of bipartisanship that is totally lacking in Washington. I was thinking about that the other night and I was thinking that it would be great if you were to announce that you would join any Republican or Democrat who would vote to elect independent Senator King of Main as the new Senate Majority Leader. A non partisan majority leader working with a majority that would appoint members of both parties to chair the respective Senate Committees, and neither party would have a majority in all committee assignments. This way we would be able to move bipartisan legislation as well as have effective oversight. For instance Dems could control one committee, Republicans another. I'm thinking you as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee which will soon be charged with probing this administration. it would be a grand gesture, one that the nation is yearning for, one that could save your party from certain political destruction and, more importantly, save the Republic from being torn apart. These are serious times, as dangerous as the years leading to the Civil War. The nation desperately needs a leader, a real leader, one who dares to bridge the divide.

It is a message in a bottle, I know.  But these are desperate times.  As McConnell once again blocks an attempt by the Senate to protect Mueller's investigation--even in the wake of the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions the day after the election and the replacing of Sessions with a boot-licking sycophant.  It was a line that several Rescumlickan senators had swore would be one that Disgustus would cross at his own peril.  There was hardly a peep of protest.  Only outgoing Senator Flake of Arizona protested, vowing to hold up the vote on any judicial nominations until there is a floor vote on several bills to protect Mueller.

We are living through a slow-motion coup, and everyone knows it.  This is not the time to remain silent, for silence is, in this case, the friend of evil.

And so, my message in a bottle.  One can only hope that the vessel reaches some distant shore in time and that, perhaps, against all odds the intended recipient.  One can then only hope that he will respond with the courage that the crisis demands.

This is how serious it has become.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison. 

November 11, 2018: Armistice Day, In Solemn Circumstance, Face Down In The Mud

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War.  As the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month approaches, Captain Harry S. Truman spent the time furiously pumping artillery shells into the German lines.  Then all fell silent.

History records an eerie feeling overtook the battlefields.  Suddenly there were no orders given, no tasks at hand.  Suddenly, there was no purpose.  A feeling of elation, but an empty feeling nonetheless.

Gone were the certainties of life, for millions had witnessed firsthand how fragile and temporal it is; and many millions more, who dealt with the consequences derivatively,  would experience a  creeping, certain, inward cynicism.  And for many the leap back across the chasm between the hell of war and the long-awaited-for paradise of peace would prove impossible.  It was a horrendous sacrifice given subsequent history.

The struggle became known to the next generation as The Great War; known to us as the First World War, for there would be yet another to follow. It wasn't the end of the madness.  It proved only to be Act One.  After an interregnum of twenty years...just enough time to grow another generation of cannon fodder, the war resumed with more horrifying consequence and Captain Harry Truman would find himself again firing the last shot of that war as well.

They are all gone now, those men who endured.  I remember their forms and faces, fragile and wrinkled in old age, marching in the parades of my youth.  I remember the selling of paper poppies, a reminder of the war, for poppies dotted the fields of Flanders before the armies reduced them to black and grey, and would again return when the guns fell silent.  They stood, amid the terror, as a benchmark of hope that life would indeed go on in this time of terror.  The poppy would forever stand transfixed in the minds of those who found themselves hung on the barbed wire and face down in the mud.

There was always the mud, the stench, the rats.  But foremost there was always dead and the dying.  Death everywhere and constant like the death rattle of mankind.

It has been a century now as we mark the end of the madness of a war that defined the century and whose repercussions find us still.

To commemorate the milestone our Caesar Disgustus is off to France making the event, as usual, all about himself.  Disgustus cannot socialize without insult; he cannot act inoffensively in solemn circumstance.

Accordingly, and predictably, he no sooner landed in France when he insulted the French President because Marcon had suggested that the European Union form its own military force.  What other options present themselves in the wake of the open declaration of Disgustus that the United States stands now prepared to go it alone?  What security is there now in American assurance?

It is a faux outrage, of course, since nothing about Disgustus rings genuine, except, of course, the incessant narcissism.  As he begs out of a ceremony honoring the dead because it was raining, he further undermines by his every act the international relationships that have kept the peace all these years.  By going to Europe, Disgustus does not honor the sacrifice, he defiles it.

It has been a century now.  As time has passed the ideals enshrined in Wilson's 14 points and the promise of the American Century has been tested by war and by a long and tenuous peace.  The American standard, like old glory at Fort McHenry, is now tattered and torn and, until recently, has yet stood as a beacon around which most of the world would happily stand.

Not any more.  Disgustus defiles our national honor and the hope that is America.  Rapidly dismantling the world we had hoped to create in our image he marks the eclipse of the American Century; the end of American greatness.  We find ourselves once again hung on wire and face down in the mud.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison.

November 5, 2018: Guy Fawkes Day, Antisocial Media, Grievances and Prejudices

“Do you remember

when you were young

how the hero

was never hung

always, always

got away”.......John Lennon.

In Britain, they are burning faggots tonight in celebration of the attempt by Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators to blow up the parliament in 1605. Faggots are, by the way, logs or sticks that one throws upon the fire when one is burning a villain at the stake.

It is fitting, on this eve of the ritual bi-annual going to the polls that we in the United States historically celebrate. But this election is different. Oh, I know how shopworn is the old bromide. One hears it at the close of every election cycle, like the alarm that the washing machine has just finished its work. But this time it truly is serious.

For our Caesar Disgustus, to be properly understood, is a modern Guy Fawkes, blowing up the institutions of our society not with gunpowder but by the adroit application of overgrown mendacity. He has, in that stinking carcass, managed to embody everything that we as a nation wish so fervently to forget.

But he has had help. It has taken far more than the modern Republican Party to degenerate into the tea-bagging hell it has become to produce this political crisis. It has taken more than hate radio, or Faux News. It has taken the internet.

Metastasizing into the iPhone technology, the 'nets' have been anything but the liberating technology its apostles had promised. In September 2017, The Atlantic Magazine (1) published an article entitled “Has The Smartphone Destroyed A Generation?” which plumbs the depths of the rot coursing through our body politic. It isn't simply the flood of propaganda, disinformation, or outright lies flooding the 'Social Media' of Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and the like, it is the profound impact that the electronic mediums created in the last few decades ranging from cable, internet and now telephones that is eating at the soul of this country.

Jean Twenge, writing in The Atlantic, concluded that “the allure of independence, so powerful in previous generations, holds less sway over today's teens”, pointing out that the young are increasingly holed up in their rooms on their cell phones, not dating as frequently and then at a much later age; not getting drivers licenses, not venturing out into the physical world, but increasingly holed up with their heads deeply buried in their respective screens. So bad is it that the young report that they feel closer to their friends on the phone than they do with real face to face gatherings. And what this technology is doing to them, it is doing to all of us.

We have a generation not only over-supervised—reporting back to the 'folks' every 20 or 30 minutes as their 'helicopter' parents overprotect them—but a generation unsupervised where it matters most—on the internet.

And what this technology is doing to them, it is doing to all of us.

From nearly every perspective, the advantage of the information superhighway slips from our grasp. Frank Bruni recently wrote in The New York Times (2) that the internet “gives rogue grievances and dark prejudices the shimmer of ideals.”

“What a glittering dream of expanded knowledge and enhance connection it was at the start. What a nightmare of manipulated biases and metastasized hate it has turned into.” (3)

Bruni then goes on to catalog to sorry examples of the guy who last week mailed bombs to Democratic leaders, the guy who last weekend opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue murdering 11, and the guy who shot up a historic black church in Charleston South Carolina three years ago. “It was on the internet, with its privacy and anonymity, that Dylan Roof researched white supremacy and formulated his evil conviction that violence was necessary”. (4)

“Enclaves of the internet warped the worldviews of all these men, convincing them of the primacy and purity of their rage...

“It creates terrorists. But well shy of that, it sows enmity by jumbling together information and misinformation to a point where there's no discerning the real from the Russian.” (5)

It's in these dark places where the potent toxicity of Donald tRUMP grows and thrives. Like any parasite, he didn't create his environment, but he has found his host. Cyberspace is the new gunpowder placed beneath the people's house.

“Remember, Remember

the fifth of November”......John Lennon

Happy Guy Fawkes Day

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

____________

(1). Twenge, Jean. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
(2). Bruni, Frank. “The Internet Will Be The Death of Us” The New York Times. Wednesday, October 31, 2018. Page A27
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid

November 4, 2018: Rumblings on the Wrong, Legacy of Race, Slow Walk Toward Fascism

For years now there have been rumblings on the political wrong about repealing certain amendments to our Constitution. A decade or so ago, a former governor of Georgia, Democrat turned Rescumlickan Zell Miller, joined other teabaggers in openly suggesting that we repeal the 17^th amendment which would take the election of United States Senators from the hands of the voters and throw the question back to the several state legislatures to decide. Now comes, from the mouth of Caesar Disgustus a full-throated appeal to repeal the 14^th amendment's guaranteed 'birthright' citizenship. An act, he insisted, could be accomplished by executive order.

A hue and cry went out about the land, rightfully calling such a blatantly racist appeal what it so transparently is, but there are other considerations here.

First, it is worth repeating, as the current critique so rightly underscores, that this is a racist appeal. It is so not only because it is a blatant assault upon a particular minority—in this case Latino's who have recently arrived and have given birth and whose children are now citizens of this country; but because the very act embodied in the 14^th amendment was a consequence of the Civil War. The amendment was one of several which, in this case, took the definition of citizenship from the states and brought it under federal jurisdiction. This brings me to my second point: the 14^th Amendment was instituted in order to prevent the several states from stripping the freed men from their newly established rights. It is a legacy of race in this country. In America, one cannot discuss any issue worthy of note, without discussing race.

And so it is.

It is right and proper to call out our Disgusting 'president' for what is nothing less than a naked appeal to racist nativism on the eve of election. But there are other, equally troubling, considerations here.

The repeal of the 14^th Amendment, or at least this provision of of it, would once again give the states authority to define who is and who is not a citizen of this country. In the wake of the wretched decision by the Supreme Court to gut the enforcement provisions of the 1964 Voting Rights Act and the swift actions of several states to immediately raise barriers to those who are not white to vote, it is not difficult to imagine an orgy of state laws being swiftly put into place stripping whole groups of their citizenship.

It is worth remembering that one of the first things the Nazi's did was strip the Jewish population, among others, of their citizenship. All else followed, and what followed was—in the Germany of the 1930's and 40's therefore, entirely legal.

These are dangerous times. What we are witnessing is a dismantling of the republic and a slow walk toward fascism.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison

November 3, 2018: Humping Parked Cars, Posse Comitatus, Where Hate Leads

“I'm not saying Trump has gone round the bend, but he's two news cycles from humping parked cars”

                                ----comedian Bill Maher 

He knows he's guilty and, as the forces of resistance gather at the polls, our Caesar Disgustus is becoming increasingly desperate. Campaigning in deeply reactionary jurisdictions, our erstwhile 'president' is calling the alarm about the horde of 'vicious' individuals, bad hombres, currently near the border of Guatemala, slowly making its way north, warning of the harm to be done by this invasion and insisting that only he and his Rescumlickans will protect this country.

It is all bullshit, of course, but it is grand theatre and the Rescumlickans are nothing but about theatre—the optics of governance.

He's order 15,000 troops to the border to defend us from this horde of poor and destitute.

Not since Pharaoh sent troops to stop the ancient Israelites have we seen such a misuse of our armed forces. Defense Secretary Mattis, who should know better, has responded by sending a greater force to Texas than we have fighting real terrorism in Afghanistan.

Such are the demands of an upcoming election.

What is lost in the histrionics is that it is illegal to do this, and has been since 1878. Recently, a presumed 'soldier' posted a meme on Facebook declaring that such an action violates the military code of justice. It does more than that, it violates Federal law.

In an act signed into law by then President Rutherford B. Hayes on June 18, 1878, prohibits the use of the army to enforce domestic policy in the United States. The law was passed as part of the “compromise” reached in the wake of the contested presidential election of 1876 when Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but contested electors to the Electoral College from—you guessed it—Florida, threw the outcome into doubt. A domestic crisis emerged and a commission was formed to decide (a constitutionally dubious act in and of itself) which Electors would be recognized and counted. A deal was struck. The Democrats would concede the election in return for th ending of Reconstruction which meant that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South. For good measure, the Posse Comitatus Act was passed to ensure that they would not soon return. (1)

And, of course, the age of Jim Crow immediately followed.

We cannot expect our present Caesar to know this, for he knows nothing, and cares to know nothing. What is astounding is that those around them, those who didn't cheat themselves of an education, would not stand up and tell this idiot that he cannot do this.

But it may well be too late. As of this writing, reports are surfacing of armed militias heading for the border to defend this country from a 'horde' of those seeking only political asylum from the hell-hole we helped create in Central America. The military may find themselves in the crossfire as they defend this country not from the 'bad hombres' coming north who, by the time they reach our 'shores', will be few and full of labor, but will instead find themselves defending us from ourselves.

This is the legacy of the gun nuts, the teabaggers, the Rescumlickan Party and Donald J. Trump.

This is where hate leads those who follow.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh'

Impeach and Imprison

____________________

1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

November 2, 2018: What The Elites don't Understand, Same Ideological Elixir, Of National Sovereignty

In an essay published in The New York Times entitled “What the Left Misses About Nationalism”, John Judis duly catalogs the outrages of our Caesar Disgustus as he postures as the champion of American nationalism. He also repeats the oft-told tales of legions left behind by the globalization of the economic order brought about by liberal ideology. (1)

But one must be careful with the use of one's terms. Both modern conservatism and 'liberalism' have deep roots in the theories of classical liberal political economy dating back to Adam Smith and those that followed him. Classical liberalism well into the twentieth century championed the ideology of free markets and it's adherents stood foursquare against any combinations—including unions—that would in any way put fetters upon capital. Oh, yes, and their fetish with the marketplace was complete.

It was only in the twentieth century that 'liberalism' became associated with what was then known as 'progressive' politics, reigning in the abuses of capital. Anti-trust (although the laws were passed in the latter 19^th century, they were enforced mainly against unions until the twentieth) action, regulations and then social programs were introduced tentatively under Teddy Roosevelt and became increasingly the palliative in later administrations until, by mid-century, the term 'liberal' had nearly lost its original meaning, fixed in the public mind with a brand of 'socialism' in the form of unemployment compensation, social security, medicare and medicaid, worker's compensation, and welfare.

But the 'left' as we understand the term here in the United States, had never fully divorced itself from the free market origins of it's 'ideology'. The 'left', such as it is, would always prefer deregulation if given the chance, work to welfare if pressed, and a corporate 'free market' approach to health care. It was, after all, Jimmy Carter—not Ronald Reagan—who first led the country on a campaign to deregulate industry (2). And it was 'The Left' that abandoned its own creation, organized labor, during the Carter years. An abandonment confirmed by the subsequent administrations of Clinton and Obama.

To complete the confusion, American Conservatism has re-embraced these origins calling themselves 'neo-liberal', in a radical adoption of the 'free market' ideology of Adam Smith as well as Ricardo's “Iron Law of Wages”, which dictates that wages can/should never be above the level of minimum subsistence—and, since they can only rise above this level through 'artificial' collective actions, unions must be destroyed. Capital must be free to run riot.

My point here is that the ruling elites of both the 'left' and the 'right', drinking the same ideological elixir, both adhere to the same free-market and, therefore, globalist tendency. That is why, for instance, it has made little difference to Flint, Michigan, which political party is in power.

To put this in perspective, Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 against the practice of giving tax breaks to corporations that exported jobs out of the country. Democratic administrations have come and gone; Republican administrations have come and gone. The Democrats controlled both houses of congress and the White House for two years under Clinton, two years under Obama. Likewise, the Republicans under Bush and now this idiot. Still the practice remains. Why? Because both parties are controlled by disciples of the 'free-market' imperative, both demonstrate an abhorrence to placing any fetters upon capital.

So the headline of Mr. Judis' essay should have been “What the Political Elites Miss About Nationalism”, for the malady does not infect simply the 'left'. There is, in George Wallace's memorable phrase, “not a dime's worth of difference” between the parties, from the Rockefeller Republicans to the Clinton Democrats, they are all singing from the same hymn book.

But Judis misses another and, I believe, much more important point entirely. It is well and good to repeat the litany of economic destruction left in the wake of this headlong rush to globalize the economy, but there is another important consideration. That is, one of national sovereignty. If questions of economics, including economic justice, are left to international organizations and tribunals, wherein lies the supremacy of our constitution? If such questions are increasingly made the prerogative of international agencies, what then is our republic left to decide? It is worth noting that most of the peoples on this planet have little or no such political tradition, and many of those that do have come to it only recently. In many quarters the values we hold dear are anathema. It was the prospect of unelected international tribunals with jurisdiction over the sovereign acts of elected representatives that led many of us to balk at the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

So, the question remains, why would we place the 'business' of the country into such hands? The nationalism represented so reprehensibly by Disgustus and others around the globe has, nevertheless, legitimacy and must be taken seriously.

That's why I supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, because the question before us then was who would emerge as the voice of these concerns? The Russians answered that question for us, and so did both the Rescumlickan and the Democratic Parties.

“An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

_________________

1. Judis, John B. “What the Left Misses About Nationalism” The New York Times. Tuesday, October 16, 2018: Page A23
2. Carter deregulated the transportation industry, airlines and trucking, setting off a national movement of deregulation and, in the process, making the idiot actor from California much more palatable.

November 1, 2018: Science Can't Save Us, The Visible Hand, Impending Doom

According to a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions from fossil fuels must be eliminated by 2050.

We don't have much time.

In an essay entitled Science Isn't Enough To Save Us, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, authors of the forthcoming “The Magic of the Marketplace: The True History of a False Idea”, observe that it will take much more than private marketplace investment to ward off the coming crisis. It will take much, much more. This is much more than a crisis of an individual, or indeed a company or even and industry. It is a crisis that impacts all of us. Therefore, it will take all of us, in the form of public—that is, governmental—intervention.

“None of major technological transformations of the 19^th and 20^th centuries were the product of the private sector acting alone and responding only to the market. Railroads, radio, telegraph, telephone, electricity and the internet were all the result of public-private partnerships. None was delivered by the 'invisible hand' of the marketplace. All involved significant interventions by the visible hand of government.” (1)

I am currently wrapping up a trip to New York to visit my son. Along the way are many reminders of the investments our ancestors made in infrastructure. From the old Erie Canal to the railroads and the interstate highway system—all state and federally funded initiatives that brought not only the expansion of the nation into the interior of the continent but helped bind a nation together as well as help make it prosper. Yes, one can add the Canal systems of the early 19^th century as well as the interstate highway system of the last to this prodigious list of public investments.

“Demand for new technologies is rarely entirely spontaneous”, observe Oreskes and Conway. “But it's not so. The historian Richard White at Stanford has shown that railroads offered almost no immediate benefit to anyone except the railroad barons, because they were built far ahead of demand, and often into places where white settlers had no interest in going. When radio was invented, no one could figure out why any ordinary person would buy one, so programming had to be created, which meant sponsors had to be found, which in turn contributed to the rise of modern mass media advertising.

“What makes large-scale technological change challenging is the integration of all those parts. Electricity wasn't just a matter of turbines, or even turbines, power lines and transformers. Financing and regulation were also required. After electricity was introduced to the urban marketplace, the biggest obstacle to its expanded use was profitability. The private sector was able to make money bringing electricity to densely populated cities like New York, St. Louis and Chicago, but it took federal intervention, under the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, to bring it to rural communities” (2).

The authors duly note the progress being made by state and regional initiatives, pointing to the Northeast States' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative which has cut greenhouse gas by 39 percent since 1999, and California's progress on electrical generation from renewable sources from 11 to 30 percent. But this is not enough.

What is clear is that the current order will have to undergo universal transformation...the report calling for elimination of the use of fossil fuels by mid-century.

This will require that the entire population is enlisted in the effort, as the country was enlisted in recycling rubber and metals during World War II, and as the entire country made the commitment that everyone would have access to electrical power and the technologies that accompanied it.

Science and technology are not enough. Private investment and the marketplace are not enough. It will take all of us acting politically to make the changes that will transform the basis of our economies and the way we relate to mother nature. These problems cannot be solved individually or serially, but must be addressed as a totality, as a universality. The Greeks, who gave us Democracy, understood this. The polis—from which we get our word politics—was all-encompassing. For the Greeks the polis—the community, the political unit—was the universe. All else was a mere subset of this universe. Politics, and public office, were of the highest calling; for the public's business trumped mere private concerns. Our forefathers understood this. John Adams wrote into the constitution of the State of Massachusetts the charge that the people must support universities and education; Lincoln funded the transcontinental railroad; FDR built the TVA, the Hoover Dam, and brought electricity to nearly every American; Eisenhower built the interstate highway system, and Al Gore pushed the legislation that made the internet and iPhone possible.

Many fortunes and financial empires were built upon these investments. Retail legends Sears and Montgomery Ward, for instance, were built using these railroads and the U.S. Postal system.

The conservatives of this country have made a pig's breakfast of governance. By discrediting government they are cutting the lifeline, perhaps the only lifeline, left to this society—indeed left to humanity to save us from impending doom. Our ancestors didn't leave the important work of the republic entirely in the hands of privateers. They were never such fools.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

_________________

1. Oreskes, Naomi., and Conway, Erik M., “Science Isn't Enough to Save Us” The New York Times. Wednesday, October 17, 2018. Page A25
2. Ibid.